Nebraska Genealogy Events - August and beyond

Nebraska not only has Hot temperatures, we also are Hot with genealogy events for the rest of the summer and fall. Listed below are upcoming events for August 2012.

As cooler weather approaches, make plans to attend the Midwest Family History Expo in Kearney, Nebraska on September 7-8, 2012. If that's not enough, two fantastic speakers will be appearing in Nebraska in October. Hank Z. Jones will be the featured speaker at the fall conference of the Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society on October 12, 2012 in Lincoln. John Philip Colletta will speak at the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society fall conference in Omaha on October 27, 2012. I plan to attend all three events, so it will be a busy autumn for me!

For the complete calendar of Nebraska events, click here. Email your event to me at sooznebr@gmail.com.

Date & Location	Description
August 2, 2012 1:00 p.m. St. Paul United Methodist Church 12th and M Streets Lincoln, NE	Lincoln Lancaster County Genealogical Society  Discussion Group led by Bob Houser
August 3, 2012 7:00 p.m. LDS Family History Center 11027 Martha St Omaha, NE	Greater Omaha PAF meeting
August 5, 2012 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Walt Branch Library 6701 South 14th St Lincoln, NE	Lincoln Lancaster County Genealogical Society – Get started finding your roots. LLCGS members will help you discover resources at the library and online.
August 12, 2012 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Walt Branch Library 6701 South 14th St Lincoln, NE	Lincoln Lancaster County Genealogical Society Demonstration of using Shutterfly to create a photo book. If you’ve created one, bring it along to share.
August 14, 2012 7:15 p.m. Dick Administration Building Union College 3800 S. 48th St Lincoln, NE	Lincoln Lancaster County Genealogical Society monthly program: Technology Update: How can technology help us find our roots? Presented by Tom McFarland and Marcia Stewart. Demonstration of LLCGS web site databases, library catalogs.
August 15, 2012 2:00 p.m. Great Room Chatelaine 6201 Normal Blvd Lincoln, NE	Lincoln Lancaster County Genealogical Society  Discussion Group led by Lila Garner
August 15, 2012 7:00 p.m. Social – more info TBA	Greater Omaha Genealogical Society social
August 18, 2012 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. W. Dale Clark Library 215 S. 15th St Omaha, NE Pre-register	Keeping Up with the Joneses … and The Smiths – researching ancestors with common names; presented by Gail Blankenau
August 18, 2012 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m Saddlebrook Branch Library 14850 Laurel Ave Omaha, NE Pre-register	Discovering the 1940 Census – Omaha Public Library
August 19, 2012 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Walt Branch Library 6701 South 14th St Lincoln, NE	Lincoln Lancaster County Genealogical Society German Genealogy Interest Group – if you have German ancestors or Germans from Russia ancestors, plan to attend. Participants will plot ancestral home locations on a German map and see how many are searching in similar regions. Bring along helpful resources you have used, resources in German, etc.

New Playground in Town: Technology for Genealogy

There's a new Facebook group in town for genealogists - Technology for Genealogy. Three weeks ago I realized that there really wasn't a common online playground for genealogists to get together to ask questions, share tech news and visit about how we use technology for genealogy.

Just in case I might have missed it, I messaged my pal, Thomas MacEntee, to see if he knew of any such group. After all, if Thomas doesn't know about it, no one does! Thomas' reply was basically "great idea, go for it!"

In a few minutes, the Facebook group was hatched. I invited a few friends, posted a message on my Facebook wall and Twitter. Before I could finish configuring the group settings, the online genealogists were flocking to this new gathering place. People were really jumping on the bandwagon and there were nearly 100 members during the first hour.

Three weeks later, we are quickly approaching 400 members, much due to mentions by Thomas MacEntee, James Tanner and Lynn Palermo of the Armchair Genealogist.

While the chatter has calmed down a bit after the first week, there is still plenty of information sharing going on regarding the technology tools that we use for genealogy. If you have a question about a product or need to learn the "how to" of software, apps or other technology, this is the group for you.

Lincoln, Nebraska "Genea-Tech" group


Along the same lines, I've started a Genealogy Interest Group through my local society, the Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society. We had our organizational meeting last Sunday with 10 members and three guests present. We brainstormed the various technology topics we wanted to pursue in depth, then  narrowed down the topics to four major themes. Our next session in September will be a comparison of some of the major genealogy software programs. My hearty thanks goes out to Drew Smith (one of the Genealogy Guys) who graciously shared his PowerPoint slides from a presentation he did for his society this month. It's a great starting point for us without having to re-invent the wheel.

It's very clear that technology is a hot topic for genealogists - we just can't get enough! And it's an ever changing field with new devices, apps, software and web sites emerging on a daily basis, a person really needs to keep up with it.